dullard

See also: Dullard

English

Etymology

From Middle English dullard, dollard, equivalent to dull +‎ -ard (pejorative agent suffix). Compare Faroese døll (“dullard, good-for-nothing, blockhead”), Norwegian Nynorsk døl (“idiot, simpleton”).

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈdʌlɚd/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈdʌləd/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: dul‧lard

Noun

dullard (plural dullards)

1. A stupid person; a fool.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:fool

   • 1880, William Blades, The Enemies of Books, page 41:

     Oh! Richard of Bury, I sighed, for a sharp stone from your sling to pierce with indignant sarcasm the mental armour of these college dullards.

   • 1995, Temple Grandin, Thinking in Pictures: And Other Reports from My Life with Autism, Vintage Books, published 2006, page 211:

     Whereas some prodigies develop at an early age, Einstein did not exhibit any great genius as a young child. Some people thought he was a dullard.

   • 2008–2021, qntm, “We Need To Talk About Fifty-Five”, in There Is No Antimemetics Division, →ISBN, page 9:

     Marion has long since stopped listening. "You dullard," she says now she can finally speak, "I'm your chief of Antimemetics."

   • 2022 August 9, Ayo Edebiri & Shana Gohd, “Private School” (3:30 from the start), in What We Do in the Shadows‎, season 4, episode 5, spoken by Nadja of Antipaxos (Natasia Demetriou):

     “Okay. What if we send him to a very selective private school so he doesn't have to worry about rubbing shoulders with street tramps and dullards?” “No. We have plenty of good public schools here, and they're free.” “I thought you were doing the accounting. Isn't the nightclub swimming in the trillions?” “No, we need that money to fix the house. And I wouldn't say "trillions." No, definitely not.”

Derived terms

• dullardism
• dullardly
• dullardness
• dullardry

Translations

A stupid person; a fool

Bulgarian: тъ́пак (bg) m (tǎ́pak) Catalan: estúpid (ca) m, estúpida (ca) f Dutch: sufferig (nl) French: idiot (fr) m, idiote (fr) f Irish: daoi m Italian: stupido (it) m, stupida (it) f, imbecille (it) m or f Latin: gurdus m, blennus m Norman: chagorne f Ottoman Turkish: طوی (toy) Polish: głupek (pl) m, tępak (pl) m, ciemniak (pl) m, nudziarz (pl) m, bęcwał (pl) m Portuguese: estúpido (pt) m, estúpida (pt) f, imbecil (pt) m or f Russian: тупи́ца (ru) m or f (tupíca), о́лух (ru) m (ólux) Spanish: estúpido (es) m, estúpida (es) f

Further reading

• “dullard”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.